“I’m so sorry,” she said, feeling like she was drowning all over again as the fresh water poured like rain upon them.
He dragged at the tie on her bikini top only to tighten the knot. He turned her and she felt his fingers between her shoulder blades, picking impatiently at the knot.
“I wasn’t paying attention. It was stupid. I’m really sorry. Please don’t think I did that on purpose. I was upset, but I wouldn’t leave Lily. I know she needs me.”
“I need you!” he shouted, making her jump.
She turned around and backed into the tiles, catching the loosened top so she clutched the soggy, hanging cups against her cold breasts.
“You scared the hell out of me. I thought—” His face spasmed and she saw drops on his cheeks that might have been from the shower, but might have been something else. “What would I do without you, Poppy?”
He cupped her face and the incendiary light in his eyes was both fury and something else. Something that made her hold her breath as he tenderly pressed his thumbs to the corners of her mouth.
“I wanted to go looking for you the day after the solarium. Do you know that? I didn’t know where to start. Ask the staff? It was too revealing. Try to catch you at the hostel? The airport? You hadn’t told me the name of the town where you lived, but I imagined I could find out. I didn’t want to wait that long or travel that far, though. Not if I could catch you before you left.”
He was talking in a voice so thick and heavy with anguish it made her ache.
“It was an irrational impulse, Poppy. We don’t have those in this family. I couldn’t admit to myself how attracted I was. I couldn’t let anyone else see it, not even you. I had to live up to my responsibilities. After Cesar, I had to show some sense. It was better to let you go. But I didn’t want to.”
Her mouth trembled. “Then Faustina took away any choice you might have.”
“Yes.” He moved his hands to lift the bathing suit cups off her chest and high enough to pull the tie free from behind her neck.
Her hair fell in wet tendrils onto her shoulders. He drew her back under the spray, took a squirt of fragrant body wash in his palm and turned her to rub the warm lather over her back and shoulders, working heat into her tired, still trembling muscles.
> “Everything in my world went gray. Through the wedding, into my marriage and after she was gone. I didn’t care about anything. I had achieved maximum indifference.” His hands dug their soapy massage into her muscles, strong and reassuring. “Then Sorcha told me you might have had my baby. I tried to approach the situation rationally. I did. But the test came back inconclusive and I got on the plane. I had to see you. I had to know.”
“What if Lily hadn’t been yours?”
He turned her. A faint smile touched his mouth. “Can you imagine? There I was spitting fire and fury and you might have said she was Ernesto’s.”
“The seventy-year-old gardener? Yes, he’s always been my type.”
He turned her to settle her back against his chest. He ran his firm palms across her upper chest and down her arms, not trying to arouse, but the warmth tingling through her held flickers of the desire that always kindled when they were close.
“I have a feeling it wouldn’t have mattered if she wasn’t mine.” His voice was a grave rumble in his chest. A somber vow against her ear. “I can’t see myself turning around and going home just because I happened to be wrong. One way or another, you were meant to be here in my life. I was meant to be Lily’s father.”
She swallowed, astonished. Shaken. Questioning whether this man of logic really believed in fate.
“You’re talking like your bohemian wife who thinks her grandfather can talk to her through the stars.”
His hand slowed and his chin rested against her hair. “You think I didn’t ask him for help? Did you see the drone above you?”
“No. But that would be a tourist, not Gramps.”
“It was in the sky, Poppy. I was begging him for some sign of you.”
He turned her to face him.
Her arms twined themselves around his neck because they knew that was where they belonged. Lather lingered to provide a sensual friction between their torsos.
“I love you.” He stared deeply into her eyes as he spoke, allowing her to see all the way to the depths of his soul. To the truth of his statement. “I’m sorry it took something like this for me to say it. To feel it. In my defense, it was there—I just didn’t know what it was.”
She tried to hold it together, but her emotions were still all over the place. Her mouth trembled and tears leaked to join the water hitting her cheeks. “I love you, too.” Her voice quavered. “I shouldn’t have said you weren’t enough. I was upset.”
“I know.” His gaze grew pained. “Maybe instead of ‘trying,’ we’ll just see. Hmm? I don’t want you to think our marriage hinges on whether we have another baby. I love you.”
“Okay. But I really do want your baby.” The yearning and disappointment was still there, but as she let her head rest on his shoulder, the hollowness eased. The darkness was dispelled by the light of his love.